I did it all myself

At Avot 4:1 Ben Zoma succinctly and a little surprisingly defines four personalities that are well known in Jewish circles: the wise, the strong, the rich and the respected. Of the rich person he teaches:

אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר, הַשָּׂמֵֽחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: יְגִֽיעַ כַּפֶּֽיךָ כִּי תֹאכֵל, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ, אַשְׁרֶֽיךָ בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה, וְטוֹב לָךְ לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא

Who is rich? One who is happy with his lot, as it states (Psalms 128:2): "If you eat of the effort of your hands, you are happy and it is  good for you" (Tehillim 128:2); "you are happy" in this world, "and it is good for you" in the World to Come.

Rabbi Yehudah Leib of Gur maintains that this statement is demonstrably true. It’s only when a person makes the effort to do something himself that he truly appreciates its value: he has invested a bit of himself in it.  In contrast, the pleasure one gets from acquiring something that one has not made is of a lesser quality: it is people who acquire without effort who tend to be dissatisfied with what they have and always want more.

Anyone who has ever had a small child—or been one—may recall a common experience. Picture the following scenario. It is Friday night, the table is laid and the silverware sparkles in the light of the Shabbat candles. The smell of fresh warm challot pervades the house. Enter one small child, clutching a grubby item that vaguely resembles a challah roll, baked by the child at school. Proudly the child shoves his own manufacture under the challah cloth along with the sleek brown loaves baked by his mother.  It’s time for hamotzi and the challah cloth is lifted. Beaming with the happiness of achievement, the child looks with pride at the result of his handiwork. He knows that his mother’s challah is of a far higher quality but he will insist on eating his own—and maybe on others taking a nibble too—because it is a monument to his own achievement.

As adults we tend to grow out of this phase and regard it as a natural part of growing up. Don’t we become more discerning as we mature? Isn’t it, well, childish to take pride in something we can objectively assess as being second-rate?  No, it isn’t. And we should never allow ourselves to lose the connection between the effort we expend and the pleasure we derive from it. As Ben He-He says at Avot 5:26,

לְפוּם צַעֲרָא אַגְרָא

According to the effort, so is the reward.

This need not mean a Divine reward for the fulfilment of mitzvot and the performance of good deeds. It can equally mean the internal reward one receives in terms of the satisfaction experienced by doing something oneself.

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